


Eros and Psyche, but tragic

by Denistamine



Series: Ancient Myths, but.. [3]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Mild Sexual Content, Rewrite, Tragedy, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-18 00:48:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18975532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denistamine/pseuds/Denistamine
Summary: Love is complicated concept in Ancient Greece, so much that no lovers are truly happy, ultimately.





	Eros and Psyche, but tragic

She had never been a lover, despite the beauty she was blessed with. As a girl, she never thought much of charming young men who courted her, she was a princess after all and princesses ought to be wed soon enough. She knew she was pretty too, by all standards of beauty her face was the fairest of them all: tall and mighty forehead, the delicate angular nose of noble greeks, a thick flock of dark curls and skin like warm olive oil, smooth and soft. Her stature was proud, she was one of those ladies men lost their mind for.

 

Ultimately, Psyche had always thought, she would have rather been ugly enough for men to befriend first. Looking at her sisters who were courted for their status, mind and look alike she was nothing but jealous. Young minds had once said their mother, always want what they do not have and never see what they already do. Psyche though, could not see the advantage of being beautiful, when men would only lust after her.

 

The concept of love, cogitated the young princess, is quite a complicated thing in her country. There were so many different type.

 

First there was one she was the most familiar with, _Storge,_ affection of parents and children. The one that her parents the King and Queen showered her with whenever they had the chance to between their regal duties. 

 

Then, there was _Agape._ She wondered as she walked through the canope of the gardens, it was truly the best kind of love. One so pure she thought of it as the reason humanity is well, a love to will the good of another. Truly, young pious Psyche, loves and cherishes mankind, but mankind never loved and cherished her this way. She walks through the temple of Athena and kneels to pray. Chatter resonates on her side, and she sees a couple girls, all similar age to her, and their dresses flutter happily against the marble floor as they run between the columns, laughing lightly.

 

She would sometime long for this type of love too, a love that united her sisters, stable boys, and kitchen maids. _Philia,_ friendship was a treasure to prize in our heart, Psyche ponders. One she would gladly have with men and women all alike, but girls jealoused her and men lusted. 

 

And lastly, she frowned bitterly, there was _eros_ , the love that united the bodies, heart and soul. The one that was chanted by mummers and fools and poets, the one glorified in books and theaters. But then, Psyche had said to her sisters once as they fawned over soulmates, name one famous pair of lovers that was happy. Orpheus cried woes that depressed the whole Greece when he had lost his Eurydice, Theseus gave up Ariadne on a lost island, Achilles went mad at the death of Patroclus, Heracles and Artemis killed their loved ones themselves, and Apollo, oh poor God Apollo, had created gardens and forests out of lost lovers. 

 

“Maybe” had argued her oldest sister, “You should be the the first one to love and be happy forever then. After all you are always so lucky.”

 

Psyche laughed, love was never happy in the end. She never thought of eros again.

* * *

 

 

‘You will marry happy, be loved and cherished until your death. But he will be a monster.’

 

Poor Psyche, had cried her mother. Poor Psyche, had muttered her father. Poor Psyche, had snickered the girls. Poor us, had moaned the boys.

 

But Psyche had never been so lost in her whole eighteen year of life. As she was aging fast as the summers came and went, her father had taken her to the oracles, and this is what they have said. A punishment for her beauty? had wondered her second sister. Psyche rolled her eyes. No need to jinx it.

 

Soon enough, short after boys in town started to worship her as the Goddess of Love and Beauty, the monster sent by a enraged Aphrodite came to the palace, and took her away from everything she had known to wed her. She did not protest, but neither did she say yes. 

 

The bitter taste of cowardice crawled up her throat, she did not know what to do so she had stayed impassible. But to her agreeable surprise the monster was both invisible and kind, and never forced himself on her.

 

He had put her in his palace, more beautiful than any she had seen, high on a mountain close to the godly sky. She was comfortably living, eating dishes that tasted like heaven and dressed in the most luscious fabrics from the east, adorning the shiniest diamonds and golds so fine they must have been crafted by Hephaestion himself.

 

The monster, she quickly realized, was a very pleasant company. His conversation was witty and his voice was smooth, and quickly Psyche realized he had become a friend of late night conversations and funny tales. Her very first friend, a title that suited him more than husband. After all their marriage was not proper yet, and she was still a maiden.

 

“Are you a virgin?” she asked him once, a choked cough and the splattering sound of wine on the ground answered her first.

 

“No, I’m afraid.” said the monster shamefully. “I dont think there are many of my kind that are.”

 

“That is not possible. Even monsters they have to be deflowered, or force themselves on others to be so.”

 

The chair on which he was sat on winced and she knew he had cringed at her crude words. 

 

“I am not like that.” he murmured, his voice wobbly and sincere, “I do not wish to take anything from you. I worship the ground you walk on Psyche, you are the queen of love and beauty here.” he said, but then the lingering silence as she felt his glaze burning her eyes sounded like an “I love you.”

* * *

 

It was summer, then winter, then summer again. A year went by and Psyche grew to love and appreciate her invisible companion. His heart, she thought, is not monstrous at all, despite whatever look he may have been cursed with. 

 

The monster had grown less wary of her mighty beauty and more flirty too. She felt his soft hands grab her waste gently as they danced, he sang poems to laud her, she felt his stare on her always.

 

“You disturb my natural emotions.” He had said once, “My kind should not have this type of affection for you, princess, it was never meant to be my role.”

 

“Then what were meant to be?” Psyche rolled over on the grass they were laying on to sun bathe, so that she could face him even though he was invisible. It felt more human this way.

 

“I..” choked the monster, at lost for words. “I am not human.” 

 

“Of course not. But does it matter?” she demanded, moving closer. 

 

“It will, one day, ultimately.” he answered brooding.

 

“Lovers” she said “are never happy. That is the meaning of eros.” 

 

She kissed him. His mouth was like fire, sweet like honey wine and salty like tears.

* * *

 

Eros, thought Psyche, is the most complicated feeling known to men. It was both exhilarating and a  tear in her heart every single instant like madness stirring in her guts.

 

When the monster laughed while telling a story, she thought of the captivation Eurydice must have felt listening to Orpheus’ voice.

 

When he touched her hand, she thought of Ariadne who became a traitor and wished to follow her heart to the end of the world on a journey she was never meant to be part of.

 

When they played dice in the gardens, leisure relaxing them both and laughing like childhood friends, she wondered if that is what Artemis felt for Orion.

 

When he mentioned a past lover, she felt in her heart a kind of fighting that would not let her sleep, and wondered how Patroclus did not murder Briseis for the heart of Achilles. Maybe as a man too he knew the feeling of conquest, of having a new lover in his bed.

 

That night, out of spite, Psyche laid with the monster, and again and again. Against her naked skin he felt even more human.

 

* * *

 

He allowed his sisters to visit while he was away on business to keep her company. As soon as the Lord of the palace left, the two girls started chirping about mundanities and this and that and this, and all things that bore poor Psyche as she grew accustomed to the monster, her lord husband, and his witty stories about how the world worked and philosophers and poets and heroes.

 

“My husband” moaned the oldest, “Is quite a queer old man.”

 

“My poor darling” cried the second, “I fully understand your feelings.”

 

Psyche did not, and did not want to.

 

“How about you Psyche? How is your monster husband doing?”

 

“Have you seen him? Is he atrocious?”

 

“I bet his interior and exterior are both awful to bear, my poor Psyche.”

 

Angered, Psyche bit.

 

“He is not half as insufferable as you are being right now.” Then, kinder, “He is my husband. I wish not to insult him in his own house.”

 

“Have you ever seen his true form?” insisted the second, jerking her hands in impatience.

 

“No.” answered Psyche truthfully.

 

“I think you should. He is your husband and you are his wife, he owes you that much.”

 

Psyche brushed the concern away, but it is stuck in the back of her mind long after her sisters left.

 

* * *

 

She thinks of it when they are together at dinner, when they walk in the gardens, when they chat about the world. But more often than not she thinks of it when they lay together, her hands searching contact more than before, leaving her husband huffing and rutting against her body, quite pleased and unaware. She wishes to know him like the blind for that she can not see him. 

 

Then it hits her one night as he lies next to her, happily sleeping naked she assumes after they made love. Maybe instead of asking him to show himself, she should take the initiative for once in her life.

 

 She thought of their first meeting and her lack of opinion about loving a monster as a husband, and how he had changed her through becoming a friend first, then a courting man, then finally her lover. She remembers the words her oldest sister once told her, and her heart swirled with adrenaline and confidence about her own lucky life.

 

Above, somewhere, Apollo snickers.

 

Athena hushes.

 

“Do not be so rude, she is only human.”

 

Psyche wishes to see her lover, and quickly she approaches the burning flame of a bedside candle towards where she knows her husband lies. Then to her horror, a feather burned as the light touched it, then another, right next to the first, and another, and another until a whole wing then  the second sets on fire like a burning hell in their bedchamber, fire hot like the love they made before but this time her husband is screeching and moaning in pain, rutting against the cold floor trying to extinguish the flames.

 

“Psyche! Psyche help me!” he cries, and beautiful skin burns off his face.

 

“Eros” she realizes as he truly looks at her for the first time. She had fallen for Eros, son of Aphrodite, not a monster. 

 

Eros burned like young love, quick and incandescent, hot so hot she could not breath and her yes were mesmerized. He looked monstrous now, for the first time, flesh dark and rotten, wings liquid like wax.

 

A lost feather felt down to her feet as she watched her husband’s tears simmer on his boiling cheeks, and her body moved before her mind, her heart longing to appease his cries.

 

Eros cries harder, as he is immortal, but Psyche is not and dies in his arms.

 

No lovers are truly happy, ultimately.

 

Above them, Apollo snickers bitterly.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please review so I can get better!


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